partly, that is!!

dragging is a sign of 'dominance' and almost all ferrets will drag
another one when they want to assert dominance.

so, dragging a biter is done to assert YOUR dominance over it. in other
words, to show the biter that YOU are the alpha and that the biting is
NOT acceptable behaviour to you.

actually, for stubborn biters or reactive biters (those that do so out
of spite at being reprimanded), i've had much better response when i've
done the scruff, hiss & stare-down and then put them down away from me
and gently pushed them away when they come close again and/or i get up
and move away. another thing that worked well was putting them
somewhere (either another pen or in the cage) where they could see all
the rest playing yet they obviously couldn't participate...they quickly
associated that biting me would curtain playtime and, since that's what
they wanted in the first place, the biting stopped almost immediately -
after one or two times of being put aside.

fear biters, i've not had too much experience with and it wasn't
anything really severe, either.

basically, i let them be for a week so they could get adjusted to the
new surroundings. yes, i still let them out for playtimes...just didn't
do too much interaction with them until they were kind of settled in.
once that seemed to be occuring, then i used toys or towels or blankets
to interact with them (kept some distance between my body parts and
them, lol)...and i would just sit still and let them get used to me
being there.

once they made the initiative to approach, i'd attempt to pet - just
along their back and with a very soft touch. i never really reprimanded
other than to say NO! and just pick them up and eye-ball them. i never
scruffed them, initially.

i really didn't have too much issue - they just weren't used to human
touch, no real abuse issues, so they settled out of the biting pretty
quickly. once they were completely settled in and we had a rapport
going, i did introduce scruffing if they got out of hand. only one did
that, though, and it was never too bad, either.

[JA]

[Posted in FML 6376]